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Monday, June 18, 2012

Oh Michigan ... Or Should We Call You Michiganessee?

Michigan seems hell bent on becoming the latest state desperate
to step into the Way Back Machine and live life like it was the 50s again.

Two Michigan
State Representatives--Lisa Brown and Barb Bynum--were blocked from speaking on
the House floor because they dared to use the words ‘vagina’ and 'vasectomy'
while opposing a proposed anti-abortion bill the day before.

See, you can't
mention vaginas in the Michigan Statehouse; and vasectomy just makes the menfolk
so twitchy that the word is also banned.

Lisa Brown, a
Democrat, was told that she was not allowed participate in the anti-abortion
debate because of her earlier ‘offensive comments’ and ‘unprofessional
conduct’, while Barb Byrum, another
Democrat, was also prohibited from speaking for using the word 'vasectomy'
during the argument.

Oh, yes, I forgot to mention that the Michigan Statehouse,
for the time being, is under GOP control, and we all know how the GOP feels
about women, discussing women's issues.

I mean, aren't there cookies for these women to bake,
or floors to scrub?

Lisa Brown and Barb Byrum

During the debate, Lisa Brown, who is Jewish, spoke
against a proposed bill to further regulate abortions: "Wherever there’s a
question of the life of the mother, or that of the unborn child, Jewish law
rules in favor of preserving the life of the mother. The status of the
fetus as human life does not equal that of the mother. I have not asked
you to adapt and adhere to my religious beliefs. Why are you asking me to adapt
to yours?"

Seems like a straightforward question, only it involve
hotbed issues like religion and abortion, but what sent the GOP over the edge
was what Brown said in closing: "And finally, Mr. Speaker,’ she said. ‘I'm
flattered that you're all so interested in my vagina, but no means no."

While some applauded Brown's statements, others were
just all verklempt, like Republican of course, Mike Calton, who said,
"What she said was offensive. I don't even want to say it in front of
women. I would not say that in mixed company.”

But even worse than having some Neanderthal
upset by Brown’s mention of the V-word, is that another Republican, of course,
but a woman, Lisa Lyons, was also offended: “As a woman and mother, I was
personally offended by Rep. Lisa Brown's disgraceful actions during Wednesday's
floor debate.”

Seriously, the Way Back Machine is nearly full.

Michigan House Majority Floor Leader Jim Stamas, a
Republican, sigh, of course, said the decision to ban Brown from speaking was
not because she said vagina but because of her conduct.

Her conduct is saying the word vagina.

Brown, being a rational human being, and a grown person,
defends her use of vagina: “If I can't say the word vagina, why are we
legislating vaginas? What language should I use? We're all adults here.”

Well, not really. Vagina.

Now on to Barb Bynum, who, during the same debate on
abortion, tried to introduce an amendment that would regulate vasectomies. She
was not allowed to speak on vasectomies, and when she protested that decision
she was declared “out of order.”

Vasectomy.

House Speaker spokesman Ari Adler says, “There were
actions by Representative Byrum on the floor involving shouting in the chamber
that also failed to maintain decorum.”

I guess you can say vasectomy in a whisper.

Bynum says, “It's my impression that I'm being banned
from speaking as a result of my use of the term vasectomy - a medical procedure.
Neither of us has been contacted by Republican leadership as to why or how long
we've been banned. Talk about disrespectful, that they don’t have the common
decency to tell us themselves.”

Perhaps because they are stuck in the 50s and don’t know
how to respond in 2012.

Now, onto other Michigan Madness.

In 2009, Julea
Ward was dismissed from a counseling program at Eastern Michigan
University after she refused to counsel a gay student because she said it was
against her Christian beliefs.

She was reprimanded by the university
and refused to even work with them to resolve the issue.

Well, that Vagina-fearin’,
Vasectomy-frightened, Michigan GOP-controlled statehouse passed a bill last
week to prohibit the state's public universities from taking such action in the
future.

The so-called Julea Ward
Freedom of Conscience Act would forbid public colleges and universities from
discriminating against or disciplining students participating in counseling,
social work and psychology programs "because the student refuses to
counsel or serve a client as to goals, outcomes, or behaviors that conflict
with a sincerely held religious belief of the student, if the student refers
the client to a counselor who will provide the counseling or services."

The legislation has the support
of the Michigan Family Forum and Michigan’s Attorney General, but has also
attracted a diverse coalition opposing the bill.

Equality Michigan says the
bill "threatens clients seeking counseling with rejection based on their
race, relationship status, and faith, or, yes, because of their sexual
orientation" and "sends the message that medical decisions can be
based on religious and personal beliefs and not on what’s in the best interest
of the patient."

Because, you know, it’s not
about the patient or client, it’s about the counselor or doctor.

Carlos and I were discussing
these latest rightwingnut actions in states like Tennessee and North Carolina, Kentucky,
Oklahoma, and now Michigan, and we both understand that the pendulum has
reached the far right and will soon be swinging back toward the middle.

And then to the left.

But what people need to realize,
is that when the pendulum does swing back to a more liberal bent, you can bet
that the left will never reprimand women for discussing women’s issues, or
women’s right to choose. The left will never reprimand a person’s choice of
using a medical term in discussing medical procedures.

And the left will never tell
an LGBT counselor, who may or may not be an atheist, a Jew, a Muslim a fill
in the blank, that they can deny services to a Christian because of their
own personal beliefs.

No, that sense of self-entitlement,
that sense of my way is the only way, that sense of censorship of bigotry and
intolerance, seems firmly rooted in the right.

9 comments:

Well, these people have to get their terms right. A vagina is an avenue, and exit, from the uterus. That is the term she should have used. Just nitpicking! She should have just called him a penis-head :-)